The company behind Target Travel, which had its O-Licence revoked three years ago, has gone into liquidation with debts of nearly £500,000.
Dealtop (Plymouth) Ltd, which traded under the name Target Travel, was penalised by the Traffic Commissioner (TC) in February 2020, along with its Managing Director, Robert Risk. Following the revocation of the O-Licence, both the company and MD were banned from holding or obtaining an O-Licence for two years.
Documents filed at Companies House on 9 August show Mr Risk had a £250,000 stake in the company, which had assets of only £29,300. Among the other biggest creditors was HMRC, which was owed more than £120,000, while NatWest Bank was due more than £31,000 and Miller Commercial was owed more than £25,000.
Target Travel operated coach and bus services in Devon and supplied the team coach for Plymouth Argyle FC. In 2018, the firm lost its 40-vehicle O-Licence due to untaxed vehicles.
After it regained a 23-vehicle licence, a series of issues led to a further penalty in January 2020. Problems included that vehicles used on local bus services were found not to comply with PSVAR.
TC Kevin Rooney noted that, following a crash involving a Target Travel bus in July 2019, it was found to have serious defects, although these were not to blame for the incident. He cited that Devon County Council had reported that one of its vehicles in October 2019 failed to display an O-Licence disc on a school run.
Money which had been used to show financial standing to support a successful application to increase the O-Licence from 17 to 23 had been used to buy eight vehicles including putting a large deposit on a football team coach. This behaviour led the TC to conclude that he could not trust the company to be compliant.
Dealtop (Plymouth) Ltd should not be confused with Dealtop Ltd, which continues to trade as normal.
